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The Education Reform Dichotomy: Big Choices Ahead

The Education Reform Dichotomy: Big Choices Ahead

In recent weeks, some commenters on my blog have suggested that there is a "false dichotomy" at work in the debate over education reform. We are told we should "tone down" our views in order that we be might be better heard.

I am a firm believer in civil discourse, and believe we ought to seek common ground with others. But I think we have a very real debate featuring different approaches to solving some real problems in our society. Debates such as these are not settled because people simply split the difference between their positions. We need to widen this discussion, and clarify the consequences of the solutions now being pursued by our political and economic leaders.

Last fall, scholar Paul Thomas offered a powerful framework for understanding the two camps of reformers currently contending for public support.

He names one group the "No Excuses Reformers," writing:

"No excuses" has a specific meaning and context in 2012, one associated with corporate education reform endorsed by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, and a long list of self-proclaimed reformers who have little or no experience as educators or scholars. Nonetheless, these reformers drive their agendas with slogans such as "poverty is not destiny."

The other group, to which he and I belong, he terms "Social Context Reformers." He explains:

While often discredited by No Excuses Reform narratives as embracing the status quo or, most inaccurately, suggesting children in poverty cannot learn, Social Context Reformers are primarily educators and education scholars who call for a combination of social and education reforms committed to addressing equity: Poverty is destiny, in society and schools, but poverty should not be destiny, argue Social Context Reformers.

Dr. Thomas offered a table which described public school problems and the policy solutions offered by No Excuses Reformers. Below I have built on and expanded his table, including a column that states the Social Context Reform policy solutions as well.

Problem

"No Excuses" Reform solution

Social Context reform solution

Low income children lag in educational success, compared to children with higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

Three decades of standards-based testing and corporate-controlled, data-driven accountability to close the test-based achievement gap

Universal healthcare (including eye care, dental care) for children and families with children

Increasing segregation, as the most economically needy children are trapped together by residency requirements in desperately dysfunctional, under-resourced schools, in physically dangerous environments where the problems of violence and social disconnectedness impact all the children in a school.

Drain public school funding for parental choice policies that reinforce stratification found in those parental choices.

We have a very real debate on our hands. There are big differences in the solutions being proposed. We do not need to be uncivil or rude, but we need to be crystal clear about what is happening to our public schools, before they are completely destroyed by the policies now being pursued. And we need to be equally clear about the positive alternatives to these policies, so we can push for them in every community in the nation. Let us make 2013 the year these issues are fully discussed and debated, and let us make this the year we decide to embrace and actively support our public schools.

Anthony Cody spent 24 years working in Oakland schools, 18 of them as a science teacher at a high needs middle school. He is National Board certified, and now leads workshops with teachers focused on Project Based Learning. With education at a crossroads, he invites you to join him in a dialogue on education reform and teaching for change and deep learning. For additional information on Cody's work, visit his Web site, Teachers Lead, and read his blog, Living in Dialogue. You can follow him (@AnthonyCody) on Twitter.

Further

In the vile wake of Charlottesville - those sweaty young white men, pasty faces contorted, screaming, "Blood and Soil!" "Jews Will Not Replace Us!" "Fuck You Faggots!" - what to say? Just this: This is racism, domestic terrorism, pure hate. This is not who we are, and this is not ok. Most vital, those "whose pigmentation matches theirs" must speak "with unflinching clarity (or) we simply amen it... They need white faces speaking directly into their white faces, loudly on behalf of love."

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